A bunt addiction burns the Reds

AP Photo/Paul SancyaEvery team practices bunting. Nobody does it in games more than the Reds.

There is not a one-size-fits-all rule about the sacrifice bunt, because not every situation is the same, not every hitter is the same, not every pitcher is the same, not every bunt attempt is the same. The factors in the equations change from pitch to pitch, inning to inning, from game to game. So it probably can’t be said with certainty that any single particular bunt try by the Reds on Wednesday night was a mistake.

But if you happened to see the last innings of the 16-inning grinder between the Cardinals and Reds and hung on long enough to see the St. Louis players celebrating the final out of a really important victory -- in which Matt Adams became the first player in major league history to club two homers after the 13th inning -- you couldn’t help but think Cincinnati blew it with the bunt along the way.

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Buster Olney

Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of two books. "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," is a Times best-seller, and "How Lucky You Can Be", about basketball coaching legend Don Meyer, was released in 2011.

He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).